


I’ve Forgotten How It Felt Before the World Fell at Our Feet

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: AU oliver queen (LOT), Angst, Episode: s01e06 Star City 2046, F/M, Gen, Spoilers, because i watched and said BUT WHERE IS FELICITY?, more violent than my normal levels, some mentions of upsetting subjects including infertility, this fic is my answer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:32:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6225919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SUMMARY:  <b>Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow’verse Star City: 2046</b>. I wanted to know what happened to Felicity in this 'verse so I wrote this; it's more violent than my typical, so please be forewarned and skip if that is not for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS: To Sus for jumping in with tons of encouragement, and to Calli for encouraging alllllll the 2046 fics. :)

 

The first rumblings Felicity hears, she dismisses.

After all, crazy rumors out of what used to be Star City are par for the course, and she’s seen no actual evidence of this new Green Arrow. She has her own monitoring system to look after John Junior as much as she can, because she is both proud of him and very, very scared for him. But she loses cameras at a pretty decent clip, and she has never been willing to set foot back in the city that took Oliver from her.

His death isn’t something she’ll ever be over. It’s been nearly twelve years, and she feels the dull ache of grief with every breath. Her happy memories of Oliver, of _them_ , are bittersweet -- she is so, so grateful for the years they had together, but, God, she misses him fiercely.

Every day.

She hasn’t faded without him; not really. Smoak Technologies is a consistent Forbes 500 company, even now that she’s stepped back from the day-to-day management to focus on R&D projects. She lives in Coast City, not all that far from Ivy Town, where they’d spent part of those first few months together; some weekends, she drives up the coast, buys an ice cream cone, and sits on the same bench they’d sat on together more than 30 years ago. Her world is still colorful, but more muted without him. Instead of bright fuschias and royal blues, she wears deep maroons and rich navys.

She doesn’t wear green.

But she’s coping. She’s _living_  even, despite his absence.

She’s been living for a dozen years without Oliver, without John, and it’s still hard sometimes to believe they’re really gone.

Whenever she and Lyla are in the same city, they have dinner and wine and reminisce about the best years of their lives and the brave, foolhardy, stubborn men they loved and lost. Lyla always fills Felicity in on Sara, who’s lived in Tuscany for ten years with her wife -- they’re expecting a second child in the spring. Felicity and Lyla’s conversations are wide-ranging, swinging from near-hysterical giggles to somber, tear-filled memories, sometimes within the same story. But Felicity always leaves those times with Lyla feeling a little bit lighter, a little bit better.

Not long after Felicity first hears rumors of a second Green Arrow, Lyla makes it to Coast City. They meet up in a sedate bar overlooking the water, and Felicity isn’t surprised when Lyla arrives with a drawn expression. She knows how much it weighs on Lyla, having a son in Star City risking his life every single day for the same cause that killed her husband. It weighs on Felicity, and John Junior isn’t even her flesh and blood.

So she’s completely thrown when Lyla sits, reaches for Felicity’s hand, and says with no lead in, no preamble, “We need to talk about Oliver.”

Felicity startles backwards, physically recoiling from such an abrupt mention of her dead husband. “What?” she manages. “Lyla, I don’t--”

“What happened twelve years ago, Felicity?” Lyla asks. But this isn’t Felicity’s friend urging her to unburden herself of painful traumas; no, this is Lyla Michaels, longtime director of ARGUS interrogating a witness. “I’ve read the report a dozen times, but there are pieces that don’t make sense.”

Felicity does not appreciate this one bit. Stung, she pulls her hand away and moves to stand. “We’re not doing this.”

“Felicity, please,” Lyla says, and now there’s that familiar compassion in her voice. “There’s-- I have some information, but I need to vet it before I can--”

“Before you can tell me?” Felicity interrupts bitterly. “I tell you everything I find about John Junior, Lyla. If there’s something about Oliver’s--” It’s still _so_  hard to say it out loud-- “about Oliver’s _death_  that I need to know, it’s cruel to withhold it.”

“Felicity, please,” Lyla says. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. You _know_  I wouldn’t do that to you.”

And Felicity _does_  know. Lyla is her closest friend, the only person in the world who truly understands her loss, because Lyla lost her husband to the same unwinnable fight.

“I wasn’t there,” Felicity says, and even more than a decade later, her lungs constrict with a toxic mixture of grief and guilt. “I told him--” She stops, shakes her head. “I begged him not to stay. I begged them _both_ , Lyla. You have to believe me.”

Lyla’s eyes are filling with tears as she listens, but she nods, because she’s heard this part of it before. Felicity has apologized over and over for not dragging Lyla’s husband along when she fled Star City. Lyla has offered forgiveness each time, even though she swears it’s not necessary, because John made his own choices. Felicity has never been able to forgive herself, though, no matter how many times Lyla nods and says, “I know you did, Felicity. None of this is your fault.”

They pause in their conversation as the waiter delivers Felicity’s glass of wine and takes Lyla’s drink order. Once they’re alone again, Felicity takes a calming breath and tries to continue.

“Their plan was... good, but it wasn’t enough. And they knew it, but they were both so--” Felicity stops, tipping her head back, swallowing hard. It doesn’t stop the tears. She reaches for her wine glass, realizing when she nearly spills Cabernet Sauvignon all over her dress that her hands are shaking badly. She takes a fortifying sip and puts it carefully back down onto the table. “I thought if I...” It’s so hard, admitting this part aloud. Felicity has _so much_  guilt. _So much_  regret. “I thought they wouldn’t go through with it if I left. I thought if I told them I wouldn’t stay there and watch them die that they--”

She can’t finish.

 _She’d thought they’d leave with her_. She’d been so stupid, so convinced that she was right and that they’d see reason. She’d thought that they would live to fight another day. She’d thought everything would be okay in the end.

She’d been so naive.

Lyla reaches out and grabs Felicity’s hand, squeezing it tightly. “You had every reason to believe that they would listen to you, Felicity. You were always the brains of the entire operation.”

“Apparently not,” Felicity murmurs, lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Because I left, and I waited on that train platform for _two hours_  for them, hoping that they would show up, _knowing_  that they would. But--” She takes a shaky breath. “They were already--” Felicity angrily swipes the tears from her face. How can this still hurt so badly? “By the time I got on the train, they were both already gone. I just didn’t know it yet.”

The waiter arrives with Lyla’s drink, and Felicity ducks her chin, letting her friend dismiss the waiter. The cloth napkin is rough against her skin as she presses it against her face, wiping at the tear tracks. But she can’t quite stop crying, so it feels like a bit of a Sisyphean task.

Especially since she knows what Lyla wants, what she’s _really_  asking Felicity for -- a readout of the surveillance video that captured John’s and Oliver’s last moments. Felicity is the only one who’s seen it; a surveillance camera that had been installed in the thirties when that particular warehouse was actually active had caught most of the action on that terrible night. She remembered the train was slowing for a stop in Marvinton, nearly an hour outside Star City, when her frantic searching had turned up the footage.

Numb, she’d watched it four times, burning every horrible pixelated frame into her brain. Then she’d unleashed technological hell, overwriting the footage repeatedly before sending a wicked virus in to ruin the entire surveillance system overlooking that portion of the Glades. She’d been in shock, the rest of the train ride passing in a blur; she’d stumbled off the train in Central City, managing to stave off her utter breakdown until she reached the solace of her hotel room and called Lyla.

Lyla has never asked Felicity for details -- but then, she’s never had to. Oliver’s body was never recovered, but John’s was, escorted home by John Junior. The coroner explained enough for Lyla to know her husband had gone quickly, a sword to the heart and one of his lungs. But Felicity remembers the flash of metal, the horrified look on John’s face, the anguished scream from Oliver.

She steadies herself and turns to face Lyla fully. “I promise you, Lyla, it was quick for John. He was – he fought so well and so hard and so bravely, but there were just too many of Grant Wilson's mercenaries. He didn’t suffer.” It’s not a lie, not really.

Ignoring the tears on her cheeks, Lyla says, “Thank you.” She takes a slow breath. “And Oliver?”

Felicity has tried so hard to forget, to block it all out. But his death is seared into her consciousness. Wilson hauled Oliver up in front of his minions, pulling back his hood. Still, Oliver fought, but there were too many men holding him. Her stomach churns at the memory of horrified realization on Oliver’s face when the men shifted his stance, yanking his arm away from his body as Wilson brought the blade down.

“Wilson, he cut off Oliver’s arm,” she gets out, her words truncated.

Lyla’s eyes widen, her mouth dropping open in shock, but Felicity is still half-lost in the horror of that footage, of that _moment_. These are the details that Felicity has never shared. These are the pieces of the story that she protected everyone else from. Lyla, Roy, even Sara -- they know Oliver died, but not the details. Not how he’d suffered.

No one needs to know that Oliver writhed on the ground in agony, screaming up into the night sky until Wilson brought the blade down, piercing his torso.

No one needs to know that Felicity wonders how closely this death blow was from the scar Ra’s left Oliver with years and years ago.

No one needs to know that Felicity can’t shake the image of her husband lying motionless on the ground.

“Felicity?” Lyla says gently. “How did...?”

 _How did he die_?

“Wilson stabbed him. Like John.” Her voice is dull, now. Devoid of emotion. She has to detach from this, has to block out the memory of Oliver’s strong form lying there, unmoving. She has to make herself forget the sight of Wilson kicking Oliver over, of Oliver’s body tumbling off the loading dock.

“Oliver died very close to the Bay,” Felicity continues, her unseeing gaze trained on the tabletop. “We assume that they--”

 _Dumped his body_.

She can’t say that part aloud either. Because her Oliver, her kind, brave, strong husband, was denied rest even in death. Felicity buried an empty casket, like Moira and Thea did decades earlier, and the brutal irony is something that Felicity will never forgive.

“He was still scared of the water,” she murmurs, not even realizing she’s speaking aloud. “It’s not fair.”

“Felicity.” Lyla shifts closer, taking both of Felicity’s hands in hers. “Felicity, please -- are you _sure_? Are you _sure_  Oliver died that night?”

It’s the last thing that Felicity expects Lyla to say, and the very notion stuns her into silence. Because--

“What?” she breathes. “Lyla?”

Lyla’s expression is controlled, giving nothing away, but her voice shakes a little. “There are rumors of a second Green Arrow emerging in Star City,” she explains carefully. “There’s some suggestion that it might be the...” Lyla trails off, then takes a breath. “Some people think it’s the original Green Arrow.”

The idea is too much. It’s absurd. How could--? Oliver would have never--

“Lyla,” Felicity says, but she’s begging for more, for _something_  to hold onto now that Lyla has tipped her world sideways. “Please, Lyla, you can’t--”

“We never found his body,” Lyla interrupts, her tone kind but determined. “You’re the only one who’s seen the video. Are you _sure_  he died?”

Felicity closes her eyes, and for the first time in years, the images of Oliver that flood her brain aren’t those horrifying last moments. No, now that she’s trying to re-examine her memory of his death, all Felicity can see are his sparkling blue eyes, and that soft smile he saved for her. She can remember the feel of his arms around her, his warm skin beneath her palms, his hot breath against her neck as he whispered her name. “Lyla, I can’t--”

She can’t even let herself entertain the idea. She’s living, she’s coping, but it’s _so hard_  -- she’s not sure she could survive letting herself hope and then finding out that he’s gone.

“Felicity, listen to me,” Lyla says, and the urgency of her tone snaps Felicity out of her spiral. She opens her eyes and meets her friend’s gaze. Lyla nods. “I know this sounds impossible, and this could be bad intell -- we’re working off of rumors. But there’s some footage I’ve seen that makes me think there’s at least a  _possibility_ that--” She stops and shrugs.

Felicity’s voice comes out in a broken whisper. “You think Oliver might be alive?”

Lyla dips her chin once. “ _Might_  be,” she stresses. “The man in the footage -- he moves very much the way Oliver did. There were differences in how he holds his bow, but if Oliver lost an arm...”

To her dismay, Felicity can feel it bubbling up inside of her, taking root.

 _Hope_.

“I’m going to Star City,” Lyla says. “And this could easily be nothing. It could be just a disappointment, but my son is there and I need to see him.”

Felicity straightens. “I’m going with you.”

“Felicity--”

“Don’t even try it to stop me,” she interrupts. “If there’s even a _chance--_ ”

“I know,” Lyla interrupts. “Believe me. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but it should be your decision whether you want to go to Star City. It _is_  your decision -- Star City is dangerous.”

Felicity nods, because Lyla is right -- Star City _is_  dangerous. But there is nothing in this world or the next that could keep her from solving this particular mystery. “When do we leave?”

END PART ONE


	2. Chapter 2

Star City is nothing like the home Felicity remembers.

She’s watched endless footage, plus a couple documentaries about the fall of a modern American city. She’s read articles and books describing the takeover by Wilson’s crime syndicate, and the resulting flight of all the people with the resources to leave. She’s contributed a _lot_ of money to the few organizations brave enough to try to help those who are still trying to live in Star City. 

Mostly, she has wallowed in so much guilt and regret -- for leaving, and for lacking the courage to ever go back -- that she honestly believed that she understood the devastation.

Felicity realizes how very wrong her assumption is as she and Lyla drive into the ruins of the city that used to be their home. The roads are barely maintained, littered with potholes and actual litter, plus the occasional abandoned car. Not many street signs have survived over a decade of neglect, adding to a generally confusing and slightly threatening atmosphere -- even in broad daylight. Grant Wilson himself is finally in prison, but there’s no infrastructure in Star City to try to fight the _rest_ of the criminal syndicates. 

Seeing this -- it further fractures Felicity’s broken heart.

But this city used to be their home, and Lyla is able to get them to their destination -- what had once been a small park along the Bay. It’s dull and empty in the grey late afternoon.

A little reluctantly, they step out of the car and look around. Standing here on the rocky, trash-littered shore of the Bay, breathing that familiar sea air, Felicity knows now that she could never have fully understood this without being here. Because everything is familiar and so very, very different.

The skyline is wrong. 

The lack of movement, of color, of _people_ is wrong.

She hasn’t been in Star City in eleven years, eight months, and a few days. Felicity certainly didn’t expect the site where her husband was killed to be the first place they would visit upon their arrival. But ARGUS has had an agent deep undercover with the Hovhannisyan crime family, and he suggested this spot to meet up with Lyla.

When he arrives, though, he balks at Felicity’s presence with an emphatic, “Oh, hell, no.” 

Felicity doesn’t care whether she’s included in the discussion; in all honesty, she’s pretty busy just trying not to drown in the memories. She tilts her head toward the shoreline and drifts away, letting Lyla drag the guy in the other direction for some privacy.

Alone with her thoughts, Felicity presses a hand to her face. She’s trying hard not to recall that terrible footage, but she shouldn’t be surprised at where her brain is taking her. In addition to being back in Star City for the first time in years, Felicity has spent much of the past two days of preparation for the trip reminding herself that her husband was killed by the cruel son of a cruel man, and she’d seen it with her own eyes. She can’t let herself hope, she can’t let herself _expect_ some other outcome, because she’s honestly not sure she could survive letting herself believe he’s alive and finding out that she’s wrong. Besides, he _must_ be dead, because the idea of Oliver surviving Wilson’s attack and letting her believe he’d died is... It’s unthinkable.

Felicity wants to keep a handle on her expectations, but she is not a glutton for punishment. She doesn’t want to relive the worst moments of her life, and she certainly doesn’t want to stand here, a stone’s throw from where Wilson murdered John and Oliver.

She turns away from the decrepit loading docks, letting her gaze land absently on Lyla. Her friend and the ARGUS agent are in still talking, quiet and intense, near the edge of a small, raised platform. 

It takes Felicity a minute, because the pergola is long gone and the support posts are mostly crumbled, but she recognizes the small dais -- Oliver proposed to her the first time right there. Her breath catches in her throat and she drifts closer, the sunlit ruins in front of her replaced by the twinkling lights on a holiday tree in her memories.

She remembers his nervousness, his careful words, his _smile_ when he turned to her and dropped to one knee.

God, they were so young then, and surprisingly hopeful, despite what followed only a few minutes later. She can remember with startling clarity how it felt to love him back them; how it felt to realize that he so very sincerely loved her back. 

There are tears in her eyes and she blinks them back stubbornly. “Focus,” she mutters to herself. Because she can’t do this now. She can’t fall apart, but being _here_ , so close to the spot where one of the best moments of her life happened, and not far enough away from where the worst occurred -- it is not doing her equanimity any favors. 

Before she really considers it, she’s already halfway to Lyla and her contact. “Lyla, I can’t--”

“I’m done,” the contact says with a disgruntled look Felicity’s way. He disappears as quickly as he arrived, and Felicity would feel bad about it if she could spare a thought for anything other than needing to _not_ be here. Immediately. If not sooner.

In fact, Felicity’s suddenly and stunningly so wound up that she’s pretty sure she’s about to have panic attack. Her lungs are working too hard, and her hands are shaking, and she can’t seem to rein it in. “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice high and thready, “but I can’t be here, Lyla.”

Lyla makes it to her side quickly, looping an arm around her shoulders. “Breathe, Felicity,” she says, and Felicity remembers a dozen time they’ve been in similar situations before, mostly in wine-soaked dazes in their husband-less houses just after they’d become widows. Back when they’d tried to alternate their breakdowns as much as possible while they learned how to live alone. Felicity hasn’t reacted like this in _years_ , and she is so grateful that Lyla is still by her side to squeeze her closer and comfort her with, “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

Felicity nods, still a little frantic, but feeling less like she’s spiraling out of control. “I’m okay.” Her eyes sting and she’s still shaky, but she’s getting herself together.

Lyla shifts to face her, rubbing Felicity’s upper arms briskly. “You want to go back to Coast City?” she asks, without even a hint of judgment in her expression.

“No, no. It’s just--” Felicity tips her head back, hoping gravity will help stay the tears. “ _Here_ at the Bay. There’s-- It’s too much.”

Lyla’s expression tightens -- after all, she knows that her husband died here, too but it’s a fact for her, not a vivid, brutal truth the way it is for Felicity. But Lyla simply nods. “Let’s go. Vargas had some suggestions where we might be able to find John Junior.”

It’s Felicity’s turn to offer support when Lyla’s voice fades out at the end of her sentence. Because Lyla hasn’t seen her son in years, and he’s been putting himself in harm’s way over and over and over again in the interim. The lack of infrastructure in Star City means there’s rarely press coverage of crime -- _or_ the vigilante. So Lyla and Felicity have been comforting themselves with rumors and the occasional bit of security footage Felicity can grab.

They don’t directly discuss the fact that ARGUS’s North American satellite’s default position is above Star City, but they can occasionally catch glimpses of John Junior that way, too.

Arm in arm, the two women make their way back to the car and get in. It powers up, and they head carefully into the heart of the city. They’re not far from the Glades -- or what _was_ the Glades once -- but Lyla seems to be angling them towards what’s left of downtown.

Felicity’s stomach sinks. “Lyla, what did your contact say?”

Lyla sighs, but doesn’t take her eyes off of the road as they ease past the burnt out husk of a tractor trailer. “The Green Arrow is seen quite a lot in the vicinity of Williams and Lafayette.” 

She doesn’t elaborate, but she doesn’t have to. “The lair,” Felicity whispers. It’s another building block, another possible clue that the rumored _other_ Green Arrow might be the _original_ Green Arrow. “No,” she decides. “I can’t.”

They know each other so well that Lyla just nods and keeps driving, knowing that Felicity’s not expecting a response. Felicity gets slightly distracted from her inner turmoil when she catches sight of the Smoak Technologies building and tries to make sense of where they are. After more than twenty years as Overwatch, she’d thought the street map of Star City was burned indelibly into her brain. Turns out the fall of the city changed everything, leaving her disoriented and unable to match the crisp green lines of the map on the car’s nav system with the crumbling neighborhood around her.

Then Lyla takes a left onto Williams, and Felicity inhales sharply. Her old office, where she’d launched Smoak Technologies, is at the end of the block. What’s left of it, anyway -- the windows are mostly smashed, and as they draw closer, it’s clear the ground floor is vacant. The interior walls are partly destroyed, and it’s hard to reconcile this place with her small tech company’s first office in the late twenties, or the office that housed Oliver’s first two mayoral campaigns back in the teens. 

Of more immediate interest to Felicity and Lyla is that this same crumbling building sits over the lair they’d kept operational for two decades. The lair that might _still_ be in use by John Junior. 

“Go around back,” Felicity says quietly, gesturing to the alley. It’s suspiciously passable, _dirty_ and tagged with gang signs, but cleared out enough to accommodate vehicles. Effectively, it’s camouflaged as yet another trash-covered alleyway, yet the rusted out dumpster is positioned conveniently beside the old hidden garage entrance. 

Felicity _knows_ that her nephew is using the old lair. 

When she glances at Lyla, her friend’s fingers are gripping the wheel so tightly that her knuckles are white. “We’re going to find him,” Felicity says, laying a calming hand on Lyla’s arm. She’s certain, now, that John Junior is here.

“Yeah,” Lyla breathes. Then she sniffles, but she doesn’t crack. Lyla is made of the sternest stuff.

When they reach the hidden entrance, Lyla brings the vehicle to a stop. Felicity steps out of the car, moving closer, looking for signs that the technology she designed is still up and running. She checks her handheld, quickly locating the active signal and turning back to Lyla with a nervous smile. “We should pull in,” she says. The last thing she wants is to compromise John Junior’s safety by parking a sparkling new car in the alleyway like an advertisement.

At Lyla’s nod, Felicity turns back to her handheld and makes quick work of the electronic security. She shakes her head and huffs -- is John Junior even _trying_ to keep anyone out? -- as the hidden entrance opens quietly at her command. 

Felicity’s moment of exasperation fades as soon as she steps into the lair, Lyla pulling the car in behind her and stopping the engine, leaving them in silence. The door slides shut, leaving them in near darkness. 

_Near_ darkness.

But there are lights on -- dim LED panels about a foot off the ground, installed every twenty feet or so around the perimeter of the little nook they’d always used as a garage. The lights aren’t bright enough for Felicity to see much, but they are very tangible proof that _someone_ is using this place regularly enough to update the lighting and keep the electricity on.

Felicity and Lyla rejoice with a simple shared look, before moving closer to the wall, edging toward the larger space beyond where they’re standing. Those same dim lights ring the open area that once made up the Team Arrow lair, but don’t come close to illuminating anyone who may or may not be inside. Felicity isn’t half the soldier Lyla is, but she knows enough to scan her surroundings with _all_ of her senses. She can’t hear anything, doesn’t see movement, but she can _feel_ someone watching them.

As soon as Lyla moves, Felicity knows her friend feels it, too.

Lyla steps away from the wall, moving until she stands just beside a light panel -- showing herself to whoever’s watching. She’s putting a _lot_ of faith in the person in the lair being John Junior, but Felicity can’t fault her.

“John?” Lyla says. She isn’t speaking loudly, but the word echoes in the large space. 

Felicity stiffens when she hears something, the hint of a footstep maybe. Her eyes have adjusted enough to catch movement, and then she sees a tall figure in dark clothing, standing less than twenty feet away. She knows immediately it’s not Oliver, and hates that she feels disappointed, because the very next _second_ she recognizes John Junior.

“Mom?” he sounds utterly stunned. He’s moving closer, toward what little light is there, and Felicity can see he’s wearing a tight black shirt and leather pants in that familiar dark green that makes her chest ache.

Then Lyla lurches forward, into the embrace of her son. John Junior recovers from his shock quickly, wrapping his mother up, leaning his chin against her temple. He’s still surprised, still on alert, even as he hugs her. His gaze lands on Felicity, and he looks -- worried?

Felicity can’t see very well past the tears in her eyes, so she gives her nephew a little wave and says, “Hi, John Junior.”

Lyla is crying into her son’s chest, and they’re rocking back and forth. John Junior cradles his mother’s hand in one large hand, whispering something to her. Felicity loves the entire Michaels-Diggle clan, and seeing this reunion makes her _so_ happy -- for Lyla and for John Junior. 

But there is some small, sad, grief-stricken part of her that sees the bond between Lyla and her child and still _regrets_ what Felicity and Oliver never had. They’d tried for a while, but after several brief pregnancies that ended almost as soon as she’d become aware of them, they’d accepted that they would be the best aunt and uncle possible to the Michaels-Diggle children and, later, to Thea and Roy’s daughter.

Then Sara grew up and moved overseas, Roy went east with little Maggie after Thea died, and John Junior disappeared to follow in his father’s footsteps.

And now Felicity stands here, alone, in the place she used to call home, and lets the tears fall. Because she is happy and because she is sad. 

Because she has let herself hope that Oliver is alive, and she is clearly wrong.

Slumped against the wall, she has her face in her hands, trying to get herself under control when large hands touch her shoulders. But they are John Junior’s kind hands, not Oliver’s, and she viciously tamps down her disappointment. “John,” she manages, throwing her arms around his neck, except that he is _so tall_ , just like his father, and she has to go up on tiptoe to hug him properly.

“Aunt Felicity,” he says. “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s so good to see you.”

She hugs her nephew a little more tightly, lets herself feel really, truly _happy_ that he is safe, that he is here with his mother. Like his father before him, John Junior holds her carefully, rubbing a comforting hand in circles on her back. Felicity remembers a hundred hugs just like this from Diggle, and sucks in an unsteady breath.

And then a voice -- a familiar voice, an _impossible_ voice -- says from across the room. “Felicity?”

She stills. Completely. 

She thinks she might be going mad?

John Junior steps back, carefully pulling her stiff arms from around his neck and squeezing her hands. “Aunt Felicity? Are you okay?”

But Felicity’s gaze has found a mostly familiar figure in the dimness of the lair. She can’t make out details, but she sees that achingly familiar stance, those broad shoulders. She sees one arm, and one empty sleeve. 

She can’t quite make out his face, but her gaze falls to his remaining hand, to his fingers, rubbing together in anxiety.

She chokes on a sob, and just barely manages to say, “ _Oliver_?”

END CHAPTER TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: When I started thinking about what could bring Oliver to the state we saw him in 2046, the only thing that made sense to me was him having lost _everything_. We know Diggle is dead; Thea is not mentioned specifically in the episode, but I can't reconcile Oliver living alone in a basement unless she'd died, too -- unless Oliver lost Thea, Diggle, and Felicity in short order, and irretrievably. I'm not sure how much detail on the timing/impact of her death will make it into the story, but I did not choose this lightly.


	3. Chapter 3

Felicity can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t _think_.

Because she’s standing in the ruins of the Team Arrow lair, cheeks wet with tears, and her _dead husband_ is standing thirty feet away from her.

She would be _sure_ she that she is hallucinating this, except that of course he’s _here_ , in the place where they spent so many important hours of their lives before she lost him.

But she did. _Lose_ him. So she can’t quite reconcile her years and years of sorrow with the one-armed man standing before her with her husband’s broad chest, her husband’s familiar stance, her husband’s nervous tic. She has spent _years_ trying to recall every detail about him, cherishing her memories -- it would be no surprise for her mind to conjure a near-perfect rendering of the man she loved. _Loves_ still, even years and years after losing him. 

Beside her, Lyla lets out a shaky, “Oh, my God,” and finally, the Oliver-shaped figure moves.

Felicity watches the way he walks, favoring that cranky knee a bit more than she remembers, and it _hurts_ , because everything in her is telling her that _this is Oliver_ , that Oliver is _here_. 

That Oliver is _alive_.

But her brain can’t quite process it. “No,” she says, shaking her head, taking a very unsteady step back. “This isn’t real.”

“ _Felicity_ ,” Oliver says. He’s ten feet away now, and the light reaches his face.

Felicity gasps, because Oliver’s face is lined with grief, with age, and sporting a _really_ overwhelming grizzly, grey beard, but -- _Oh, God_ , it’s Oliver. 

And then he’s there, within reach, standing directly in front of her, those intense eyes staring down at her. The expression on his lined face -- he’s looking at her with wonder, and with regret. “Felicity.” He says her name in that way he always had of making it sound like praise, like a prayer. She has heard that in her dreams a million times since he died -- since he _left_ her; it sets her off-balance hearing it in the waking world.

Her chest feels tight. “Oliver?” she whispers.

He doesn’t answer with words; instead, he leans down, engulfing her with his arm, yanking her against his familiar hard body. 

She is too stunned to react, standing stiff and unsure in his uneven embrace, her cheek pressed against soft cotton over firm muscle. When she inhales, he _smells_ like her husband -- like sweat and leather and a thousand mornings waking with her face nestled against his skin. Her brain is firing panicky alerts, because _this can’t be real_ and _what is happening right now_ and _Oliver is alive_ and it’s all just too much.

Felicity whimpers, bringing her palms to his chest and pushing him away. “What...?” She can’t finish the sentence, can’t figure out where to even _start_. 

Because the man standing before her is undeniably Oliver Queen. Her husband is alive, and there’s a warm, _intense_ kind of joy expanding in her chest, but -- _her husband has been alive for the past twelve years and let her believe he was dead_?

She is suddenly and stunningly _burning_ with rage.

“Felicity,” Oliver starts, and even if his voice is a little rougher than she remembers, a little lower, she _recognizes_ this tone. It’s his _I screwed up, but just let me explain_ tone, and it has always, _always_ infuriated her. “Please, let me--”

“Explain?” She interrupts, her hands in fists at her sides. “You want to _explain_ how you let me believe you _died_? For _years_?” She’s crying, and now that she’s started she’s not sure she’ll ever stop, because there is _so much_ she’s kept in, that she’s kept carefully locked away in order to make a life for herself without him. Because he’d _died_. “You let me _mourn_ you, Oliver?” She is heartbroken, and she is furious.

She can see the shine of tears in his eyes; she can read how hard it is for him to hold her gaze. “Felicity--”

“No!” she shouts, bringing shaking hands to her face, needing to block out the world for as long as it takes for her to find her balance in this new, unbelievable reality. Where her husband lived. 

In secret. 

Without her. 

Lyla’s palm lands on Felicity’s back, soothing her the way she has a hundred times before, and Felicity turns blindly into her friend, dropping her face onto Lyla’s shoulder. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to even out her breathing. Because everything is _too much_ right now, and Oliver used to be the one to comfort her through these moments, but then he _fake died_ and--

Whirling, Felicity steps into Oliver’s personal space and _shoves_ him as hard as she can, pouring all her hurt and anger and rejection and pain into it. He barely moves, because he is _still_ incredibly strong, and that just infuriates her more. “How dare you?” she yells, shoving him again.

“Felicity, please -- I’m sorry,” he says. He’s saying more -- repeating himself, apologizing, begging for her to listen, but she can barely hear him over the volume of her rage.

“I waited, Oliver,” she manages, her voice cracking and shaking with anger, with grief. Because she can remember those agonizing hours on the train platform -- scared and skittish and pacing, wishing desperately to see John, to see Oliver there to join her before the last train left. She remembers the agony in her chest as the train pulled away, as Star City’s familiar skyline disappeared into the distance. She’d felt like she’d abandoned them, like she’d left them to an impossible fight. And that was _before_ she’d seen the video of their deaths. “I waited for so long, but you _never came_.” 

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his hand landing on her shoulder like a memory. 

And that’s when she breaks.

Felicity cries like she hasn’t cried in years, great gasping sobs that wrack her body, that she knows will leave her lightheaded. It’s not Lyla that wraps her up and supports her this time, it’s Oliver. The achingly familiar feel of his hard chest beneath her cheek makes her cry harder.

She barely notices as he eases them down to the floor, tugs her closer. She can tell, distantly, that he’s crying, too. His face is pressed to her hair, and it feels like it used to, when they loved each other; when they turned to each other in times of crisis or despair.

Felicity cries until she can’t cry anymore.

Finally, absurdly, it’s the strange feel of his long, scratchy beard against her cheek that grounds her to reality, that brings her out of the fog. Because his scruff is supposed to be soft and bristle-y. This is Oliver, but he is not _her_ Oliver. Not anymore.

With shaking hands pressed against her face, she takes several deep, steadying breaths, ignoring the pounding headache. When she feels like she has herself under control, she straightens, shifting away from him. She scoots over half a foot, leaning her back against the wall. They’re sitting on the floor of the makeshift garage; absently, Felicity congratulates herself for choosing jeans instead of a skirt today. Lyla’s high-tech, reinforced loaner car is directly in front of them, and Felicity’s distracted gaze catches momentarily on the matte red paint. 

Glancing around, she lets her focus widen from the sheer, overwhelming presence of Oliver. Lyla and John Junior have moved across the room, settling into mismatched chairs, their heads close together as they talk.

Felicity appreciates the space, because she feels brittle, like the slightest touch may leave her shattered.

“Are you okay?” Oliver whispers, his voice rough from his own tears.

A sudden flare of irritation washes away the rest of her post-crying disorientation. She glances up at Oliver, the man she loves beyond reason, the man she’s yearned for, and she straightens her spine. The glare she gives him is answer enough. How can he even _ask_ her that?

Oliver shifts under her gaze, unease in every line of his body. “Felicity--”

“Don’t apologize,” she interrupts. Because she is nowhere even close to starting to _consider_ being ready for forgiveness. 

“Explain,” she demands.

Oliver folds in on himself, shoulders rolling forward. “I...” He pauses, clears his throat. “I love you.”

She can see the truth of it in his face. And she can _feel_ it like a million cracks spidering along her skin. “Then why?” The question comes out full of hurt, full of all of the things she doesn’t want to share with him.

“Felicity, please, just-- I know there’s a lot for me to explain, but I have missed you every second. I need you to know -- to _believe_ \-- that I have loved you every single day of the last 32 years.”

She does believe him. Because Oliver loving her has never been the problem. Felicity shakes her head, just a tiny bit. “Then _why_?” she repeats. Because this is a mystery that she cannot go another hour without solving. She needs answers. “Oliver--”

“I very nearly died,” he says, his tone low and rough. He shifts against the floor with a grimace, turning his body towards her a little bit more. “I woke up three days later at the clinic on Richards.” Off of Felicity’s puzzled reaction, he nods. “It was closed, but some of the doctors and nurses were still treating people. Especially during...” He waves his hand, unable to describe the pitched battles on the streets of Star City. He doesn’t need to, as Felicity remembers it vividly.

“So that explains _three days_ of me believing that you were dead,” she says, and she hates that her voice is shaking. “Three awful days,” she adds, remembering several hours sobbing in the bathtub, of all places. Fully clothed, no water involved, just -- something in her grieving mind had insisted that she curl up in the small space before letting go. “What about the--” she pauses, calculating-- “the _140 months_ since?”

Oliver watches her helplessly, and she knows before he speaks that he doesn’t have an answer. “Felicity...”

“Did you just... not want me anymore?” she whispers.

“No!” His answer is immediate, and he reaches for her, but Felicity lifts a hand, warding him off. Eyes wet, he replies, “ _No_ , Felicity. I just… I woke up, and what did I have left? After Thea--” Oliver stops, swallows hard, still struggling with that loss twelve years later. “After Wilson killed her, I know it was bad. I know _I_ was bad. I made... bad choices; _stupid_ choices. I--”

“Oliver,” she interrupts, because even after this long, even after he left her behind, her instinct is always to comfort him. “You were grieving her. Of course you weren’t thinking straight.” She remembers trying to keep afloat in the sea of her own grief, while at the same time trying to keep Oliver from drowning in his despair. All the while trying to keep a step ahead of Wilson’s wholesale attack on Star City, and his vendetta against Oliver. 

That three month stretch was easily the worst time in Felicity’s life -- culminating in the loss of her sister-in-law, her brother, and her husband in the space of a month.

Oliver nods, and she can see from his haunted expression that he’s thinking about those awful weeks, too. “But everything that came after Thea -- it’s my fault.”

Any doubts she may have had that this was real, that _he_ was real, are effectively extinguished by his words. Because Oliver Queen has always, _always_ apportioned to himself entirely too much blame for anything that goes wrong. For any harm that comes to his family and friends. “Oliver--”

“My choices,” he interrupts, but there’s no malice, no anger in his tone; just resignation, “led to Wilson outing Oliver Queen as the Green Arrow. My choices led to Dig’s death. Dig, he’s -- I lost my brother _and_ my sister, Felicity.”

Her eyes sting. She knows how devastating it’d been; she lost them, too. It’s still the kind of loss she has never quite been able to accept. 

Oliver shifts, drawing her attention back to him. His voice is low and resigned when he says, “And then I lost you.” He pauses, his gaze dropping to his lap for a moment. Then he steels himself and meets her gaze. “You left.” It’s not an accusation, but a simple statement of fact.

Still, Felicity feels it like a slice to the skin. It’s the one unforgivable truth about that horrible day almost twelve years ago. She remembers that day so vividly -- Oliver, still too wild with grief over Thea’s death to see straight, to see _reason_. She’d _known_ he was in a bad place, but she’d left anyway, gambling that his belief in her would win out over his despair. “I thought you would come after me,” she says, anguish clear in her tone. She sniffles, hating the tears that are threatening again.

“I wish I had, Felicity,” he answers, leaning toward her. “I wish I’d listened, that I’d made John go with you. I wish I’d done so many things differently.” He closes his eyes, lips pressed tightly together for a long moment. “When I woke up, there was nothing left of me,” Oliver says. “Not enough, anyway.” He tips his head to the left, towards his missing arm. “I was half a man, Felicity, and I couldn’t have any kind of life anymore as Oliver Queen.”

Felicity stares at him, unable to process how wrong, how regressive his reasoning was. “You could have had a life with _me_.”

“I couldn’t,” Oliver insists, turning to face her fully. Inching closer, and she doesn’t have the strength to move away. His eyes are begging her to understand. “Wilson was going to keep coming after me, and I couldn’t beat him. Even if I managed it somehow, the DA made it very clear that I would be prosecuted for the people I killed.”

Felicity’s anger is back, bright and burning in her chest. “You married a _hacker_ ,” she protests. “I could’ve made that go away. Or I could’ve created new identities for us, new lives _together_.”

He shakes his head, reaching for her hand. Even furious with him, she can’t resist the feel of his hand in hers after all these years. His grip tightens. “I promised to honor you, Felicity. To _love_ you. The best way I knew how was to make sure you got to keep going, to keep being this amazing, successful, brilliant woman who led Queen, Inc., and launched Smoak Technologies, who changed the lives of thousands of people with traumatic injuries and nerve damage.” He shrugs. “You’re a good person.” He pauses, a small smile on his lips. “The _best_ person, and you deserve to live in the light.”

The extent of his wrongness, of his regression, leaves her breathless. Long, _long_ before they were more to each other than teammates, she’d made it quite clear that she makes her own choices. Over the years, as friends, as lovers, as spouses, she’d made it clear that she chose him, _always_. 

“You said--” She has to stop, clear her throat, swallow against the lump in her throat. She pulls her hand from his, pressing her palms against her thighs. “You said I was your always, and that you wanted to be mine.” She remembers that first, fake wedding ceremony. She remembers the beautiful words he’d said to her, and how angry and unreceptive she’d been.

And she remembers their actual wedding, months later, on a beach in Bali with just Thea and John and Lyla. She remembers Oliver repeating part of what he’d said the first time, but with joy instead of yearning. 

She remembers the way she couldn’t stop smiling when she’d repeated it back to him for the first time -- _you are my always_.

Those were the words that made Oliver cry, and they’d stood there, barefoot in the warm sand, hands clasped together. They’d just grinned at each other with tears on their cheeks. That moment -- that _happiness_ \-- is so sharp in her memory.

“Felicity--”

“You promised me better or worse,” she argues, her voice shaking with anger, with gratitude, with pain. “You promised me sickness and health. How could you think I would choose _any_ of those things over you?”

His smile is bittersweet. “I knew you wouldn’t, because you always put others first.”

Her rebuke is sharp. “And if I do, that is _my_ choice. I chose you, Oliver. I married you. I made _vows_ to you. And then you just--” She shakes her head, at a loss. “You took away my _always_ , Oliver, and I don’t know how to forgive you for that.”

Oliver sits quietly, his breathing a little heavy, a little labored with his emotions, but he doesn’t reach for her, doesn’t argue. 

Instead, the truth sits silent and heavy between them, and the inches between them feels like miles. 

After a long moment, Felicity gathers herself and shifts, pushing up onto her knees with a little groan. She’s not as young as she used to be, and her surgical scars ache sometimes. Oliver holds out his arm and she takes it without thinking, steadying herself with his incredible strength as she rises to her feet. Then she freezes, her fingers wrapped partway around his still-massive bicep. 

Touching him is so easy, wanting him -- _loving_ him is easy. Always has been. But forgiving him... she has no idea how to do that. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

So she steps back, dropping her hand from him, and tries to ignore the way his face falls. Even at 61, Oliver is graceful athleticism in motion, getting to his feet without any audible cracking or groaning. And then he just stands there, at a loss, looking down at her with those warm blue eyes that she’s loved for more than half of her life. 

For just a moment, the anger and the grief and all the other complicated emotions lift, and all Felicity feels is _joy_. Her husband is alive and standing before her. Before she can second guess herself, she steps forward, looping her arms around his ribcage to hug him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she murmurs into his chest, holding on just a beat longer when his hand lands warm on her spine. 

Too soon, she can feel the tears and the rage piling up in her chest, fighting their way back, and she steps back, blinking up at him. Gently, Oliver lifts his hand to her face, tracing her jawbone with trembling fingers. “I am sorry,” he says, soft and low and sincere. “That last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you.”

Felicity nods in acknowledgment, but not acceptance. Because he may not have intended to hurt her, but she has never been in as much pain as when she mourned his death. 

The complicated rush of emotion is back, constricting her chest, making it difficult to stand so close to him. A glance towards the center of the room shows that Lyla and John Junior are watching them warily. Felicity nods at her friend, and then looks back at Oliver. “I need to go.”

His expression is heartbreaking, but she can’t let herself comfort him. He presses his lips together and nods.

Lyla and John Junior approach cautiously, curiously. Lyla takes the opportunity to give Oliver a brisk, brief hug. “It’s good to see you, Oliver.”

He can barely look her in the face. “I’m sorry about John, Lyla.”

“I am, too,” Lyla answers solemnly. “I miss him every day, Oliver. But I think you’ve punished yourself enough. Especially for something that was never your fault.” John Junior looks away, shifting his weight, and Lyla links her arm with her son’s without ever looking away from Oliver.

“He stayed because I stayed,” Oliver says quietly. Guiltily.

“My husband made his own choices, for his own reasons,” Lyla answers. “The person responsible for his death is the person who killed him.” She looks between John Junior and Oliver and adds, “Not his son, not his brother.”

Oliver ducks his head. He doesn’t agree, but he clearly doesn’t want to argue with Lyla. She sighs, then lets it go, turning to Felicity. “John is coming with us,” she announces, a broad smile on her face at the thought.

Felicity brightens, so glad that John and Lyla will have some safe, uninterrupted time with each other. But when she glances at Oliver, he’s bracing himself for impact. She steps closer to him. “There’s an ARGUS safehouse,” Felicity explains. “We’re not leaving Star City yet.”

“Oh.” Oliver manages a half-smile for John Junior and Lyla. “That’s-- That’s great.” But the wistful look he’s giving Felicity makes it clear he wants her to stay close. Or for her to invite him to the safehouse. 

But she can’t handle that. Too much has happened, too much has been said it too short a time for her to process. “I just…” She shrugs, unable to voice her objections. 

Oliver has always understood her, even when she can’t explain herself in words. “You need space,” he says. “I understand, Felicity, and I--” He breaks off when his voice starts to shake, tipping his head back for a long moment. After a shuddering exhale, he tries to smile at her. “I just hope I see you again.”

She can’t answer in words; she doesn’t know what to say, how much she can promise him. So she simply reaches out for his hand, gripping it briefly. 

When she steps away, Oliver doesn’t let go, squeezing her hand almost too tightly. He holds on to her until the absolute last second, and there’s a small, strangled sound when their hands detach.

Felicity straightens her shoulders and opens the car door, slipping into the backseat. Lyla and John Junior get into the front, and the doors shut. 

Felicity tries, but she can’t keep herself from watching Oliver as they back slowly out of the lair’s garage. He’s standing near the wall, his fingers twitching in that nervous tic of his, and sorrow and hopelessness written clearly in the lines of his face.

Just as hidden door begins to slip closed, Oliver lifts his hand in a small wave. Felicity presses her palm to the glass for a moment, then takes a deep, shuddering breath as the door hides him from her view. She panics, for just a moment, because what if this has all been an illusion and that she’ll never see him again? 

Felicity closes her eyes, concentrating on her pulse, on her breathing. _Oliver is alive_. She repeats it to herself, a new mantra to get her through the night until she can see him again. Because she will see her husband again. She will see the man she loved and lost again. Underneath the anger and the hurt, there is _so_ much gratitude. And so much love.

After a moment, she opens her eyes and catches Lyla’s concerned gaze in the rearview mirror. “There’s wine at the safehouse,” Lyla offers.

Felicity smiles through her tears. “Is there ice cream?”

“Of course,” Lyla answers.

“Okay.” Felicity nods to herself. “I can do this.”

Probably.

END CHAPTER THREE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, funny story. The third chapter is up! But as you can tell... there's no way I could actually wrap this up in three chapters. ::headdesk:: I think there will be two more chapters, but who knows?


	4. Chapter 4

Felicity wakes slowly, feeling sluggish and, once she opens her eyes, more than a little disoriented. This is not her bed, or her home. The light is wrong, and the bed is in the wrong place, and her head is achey, her throat sore, and -- Oliver is alive.

It’s enough to jolt her to full awareness.

The safehouse. Bland blue walls, slightly scratchy sheets, the wrongness of how quiet everything is here -- she’s in the ARGUS safehouse with Lyla and John Junior. Because they’re in Starling and _Oliver is alive_.

Felicity blinks up at the ceiling.

She feels... well, she’s honestly not sure _how_ she feels, except _relieved_ that Oliver is alive. She _definitely_ feels that. No matter what else she feels, Oliver being alive is an answer to all of her most far-fetched prayers.

But Oliver being alive _also_ makes her dread the big decision looming before her. Because when she boils yesterday’s revelations down to the basics, Felicity’s inescapable conclusion is this: She has the unexpected opportunity to share her life with her husband once again, which is what she’s wished for thousands of times since she lost him. 

If she chooses to forgive his wrong-headed decisions over the past twelve years, they can try to rekindle what they used to have.

Or she can admit that her trust in him is broken beyond repair and her heart too bruised to offer it back up. She can choose to protect the life she’s rebuilt and walk away from this man that she loves beyond reason.

The idea of leaving him voluntarily makes the ever-present loneliness flare up to a palpable ache in her chest, but, _God_ , the knowledge that he’d chosen every day for nearly twelve years to live without her _burns_ hot.

She is so, _so_ torn, and she doesn’t even know where to start.

She’d hoped a good night’s sleep would help; well, she’d hoped for a good night’s sleep, anyway, even though she figured she’d be plagued by nightmares. Clearly, emotional exhaustion has at least one positive -- she slept a solid seven hours.

Not that she feels rested, necessarily, but she does feel recharged enough to roll out of bed at 7:19 a.m. Quietly, she slips on her snuggly robe and makes her way to the kitchen. Because that’s where the coffeemaker lives.

John Junior is asleep on the couch, snoring, and Felicity pauses for a moment to look at her nephew. Despite Lyla’s offer of wine and companionship last night, Felicity had demurred, choosing instead to spend an hour or so talking with John Junior and Lyla before retreating to bed, leaving them plenty of mother-son bonding time. John Junior is more effusive than either of his parents, but Felicity can still see the weight of Green Arrow on his shoulders. 

She wouldn’t have chosen this life for him, especially not going it alone the way he had been for a while. But considering she spent half of her life on Team Arrow, she doesn’t have much room to talk. 

He shifts in his sleep and she freezes, but John Junior simply rolls over, turning his back to the world. He’s filled out in the years since Felicity last saw him, his frame narrower than his father’s, but more solid than she remembers. She can’t see any obvious scarring or injuries, which brings her some relief. 

She’s glad for John Junior’s sake that he has Oliver now, and she is _so_ relieved that Oliver has someone, too. She ignores the pang she feels that that someone isn’t her; she’s not sure it ever can be again.

Felicity pours herself an irresponsibly large cup of coffee (she finds a large plastic tumbler intended for soda and very nearly fills it) and retreats to the small bedroom she’d claimed last night. Because she has a lot to think about and no idea how she’s going to manage rational thought when she feels so overwhelmed by wild, conflicting emotions.

It’s hard. Trying to sort out her thoughts about Oliver’s choices the past dozen years is a rough task, made even rougher by the stampede of memories of their life together _before_. 

She thinks about how Oliver’s choice reminds her so much of the man she first met, the man who’d run away to Lian Yu when he was hurting, and then she’s thinking about landmines and his big, hard, sweaty body atop hers.

She thinks about Oliver choosing a life alone instead of a life with her, and she remembers Ra’s al Ghul, and the way Oliver had tried to smile to persuade her he could win.

She thinks about the first time she mourned his death, and then she remembers the hope on his face when he asked her to take a chance on him, when he asked her to marry him, when he took her hand and called her Mrs. Queen for the first time.

And then she falls into all of her favorite moments, her favorite memories, the things she’d held onto with an edge of desperate grief when she’d thought him dead, they come swarming back. Instead of sepia-toned, jagged-edged fragments of her life, she experiences them in full-fledged color. And instead of just the good times, she remembers the rest, too -- the fights, the disappointments, those last terrible days before she’d left Star City.

What she’d expected to keep her up last night, a total immersion in her life _before_ \-- it hits her now, and it hits her hard.

Felicity is lost in a recollection -- the two and a half weeks she and Oliver had spent in Costa Rica for their 10th anniversary, lazing in the bed of their beachfront cabana, lost in each other; she remembered being amazed they still felt that way, even after ten years of marriage -- she’s lost in time when the bedroom door eases open. 

“Felicity?”

She jerks back to the present, back to the small safe house just outside a destroyed city, and meets her friend’s gaze. “Morning, Lyla.”

Lyla takes the greeting as an invitation and moves into the room, groaning a bit as she settles on the bed and moves to sit cross-legged beside Felicity’s legs. “How are you doing?”

A laugh escapes before Felicity can stop it. “No idea,” she admits. “I... have too many conflicted feelings to make sense of them.”

Lyla nods slowly, holding out a hand for Felicity’s giant cup of coffee, which is surrendered only begrudgingly. Lyla smiles her thanks, takes a sip, then promptly grimaces. “Ugh, it’s cold.” She leans very far over and deposits the cup on the nightstand with an emphatic thump.

“It is?” Felicity glances at her handheld, tapping the screen to display the time. She’s surprised to find it’s almost 8:45. “Oh.”

Lyla’s smile is warm and kind. “Yes. _Oh_. Did you sleep?”

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“Nightmares?”

“No.” Felicity studies her friend closely; she looks a little tired, but mostly happy. “You?”

Lyla glances at the door. “Nope. Slept peacefully knowing my boy was safe.” Her delighted grin fades slowly. “Felicity,” she begins, “Oliver--”

“My husband let me believe he was dead for nearly _twelve years_ , Lyla,” Felicity interrupts, and it seems that anger is in the driver’s seat again. But, really, all the rest of it is decided; _immovable_ \-- she misses Oliver, she wants him, and she will always love him. _Always_. All of that is unchanging, and in any other circumstance, her path forward with her husband would be certain. But this? Nearly a dozen years since she lost him, seemingly forever, and he reappears to break her heart. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to forgive that. I’m not sure that’s _forgivable_.”

“I am not defending that, Felicity,” Lyla says. “Believe me. In fact, I’m going to have a strongly worded conversation with the man myself.” 

“Lyla, no,” Felicity says. “He’s not-- I don’t need you to--”

“I’m not fighting your battles for you, Felicity,” Lyla reassures her. “I wouldn’t do that, and you don’t _need_ me to.” She pauses, and Felicity recognizes this look on her friend’s face -- Lyla’s trying to decide how to explain something she’s _sure_ Felicity won’t totally understand. Usually, Lyla makes this face when she’s explaining ARGUS-related things, not when they’re talking about their long-lost husbands. “This isn’t even about the two of you,” Lyla says finally. “Not completely.”

Felicity frowns, because, yeah, she really doesn’t understand -- how can Oliver’s decision to live underground without Felicity _not_ be about Felicity? “What do you mean?”

Sighing, Lyla shifts around, moving to sit beside Felicity and tucking her legs under the blanket. They’d spent so many days and nights those first awful months like this -- talking, laughing, crying, their backs up against the headrest of her bed or Lyla’s, leaning on each other metaphorically and physically. Often, there was wine, or cookies, or ice cream, or pizza. This morning, there’s just the overbright sun, cold coffee, and the strange silence of the safehouse.

Lyla grabs Felicity’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “Oliver needs a support system. He needs a lifeline to make sure he doesn’t fall off the edge. Ever since I’ve known him, this has been true. And for most of that time, he had multiple people -- particularly you, Johnny, and Thea.”

Felicity feels that familiar ache -- her own grief, but also her grief _for_ Oliver, for the fact that the man she loves has lost so much, mourned so much. “I know,” she whispers. “And he lost all of us, basically at once.”

“Oh, no,” Lyla corrects, her tone soft but certain. “Don’t start with that. This is in no way your fault, Felicity.”

She understands Lyla’s point. Truly. But she _feels_ very differently. Because she remembers that day, remembers that last conversation. Dig had been torn, but determined to back Oliver’s play, and Oliver... he’d been lost, still dumbstruck by Thea’s death. “The last thing I said to him was, ‘I won’t stay here and watch you die.’ What--” She stops, swallows a sob, remembering the wounded look on his face, the way he’d taken a stumbling step back, _away_ from her. “What kind of wife _says_ that?”

“Felicity, you’re losing sight of one thing,” Lyla says, tilting closer until their shoulders are resting against each other. 

Felicity lets herself lean on Lyla, lets her body relax against her friend’s. Because she trusts Lyla. Lyla is the one person in the world who really understands what Felicity’s been through since Oliver’s death -- both because Lyla lost Dig at the same time, and because Lyla was _there_. For all of it. If there’s anyone’s opinion on this that Felicity finds valuable, it’s Lyla’s. So she closes her eyes and asks, “What’s that?”

“You were _right_. They chose wrong, and they paid for it.” Lyla’s voice grows unsteady, her grief for her husband still fresh after all of these years. “They should’ve listened to you, and you did everything you could to persuade them that their plan was terrible and the fight unwinnable. The rest is _not_ on you.”

Felicity jerks a nod. She doesn’t necessarily _believe_ Lyla, not yet, but the logic of what her friend is saying makes sense. 

Lyla makes an unhappy noise and shifts, no doubt her bad hip acting up. But she stays right where she is, sitting side-by-side with her friend the way they’ve done a thousand times before. “Felicity, what I said before? About it not being about you? What I mean is -- Oliver healed enough over the years to know what he needs to keep on an even keel. His decision to isolate himself, to live in a _bunker_? That’s him listening to his demons, to those voices inside of him that tell him everything is his fault, that he loses people due to his own actions. That’s Oliver letting himself believe he doesn’t deserve happiness.”

Tears stream mostly unnoticed down Felicity’s face. She finds she can’t argue with Lyla, because her friend is right. Oliver isolating himself -- he’d gotten so much better over their eighteen years of marriage, but that default reaction? It’d never gone away completely. _This_ choice he made -- and _continued_ to make every day he lived in the shadows of Star City -- it’s all the evidence she needs that it never really _will_.

It cuts her deeply that he stayed away from her for so long, but it also hurts her to know he’s been _so_ desperately alone, so broken. She and Lyla at least had each other; Oliver’s had no one. So as hard as the last twelve years have been for her, they’ve been isolated _hell_ for him.

But a small, scared, hurt part of her cannot get past the ugly truth that he chose this hell over a life with her. If she opens her heart again, can she ever really trust that he won’t choose it again? She’s watched him do this time and again over the years -- retreat into himself, shy away from the pain. 

What if she lets him back into her heart and he shatters it again? _By choice_?

“Felicity?” Lyla prompts quietly.

She blinks her eyes open, turning her head to meet Lyla’s gaze. “Yeah?”

“You don’t have to make any decisions right now,” Lyla says. “A lot has happened really quickly. And understanding _why_ Oliver chose this doesn’t mean you have to forgive him. You need to do what’s best for you.”

“I know,” Felicity manages. She squeezes Lyla’s hand in thanks. “I’m nowhere close to figuring this out, Lyla. But I...”

Lyla bumps her shoulder playfully. “You what?”

Felicity closes her eyes, remembering the look on Oliver’s face as the garage door slid closed between them, remembering the overwhelming feel of his body against hers, solid and warm and _alive_. “I need to see him again.” When she opens her eyes, Lyla is smiling.

“I think that makes sense,” Lyla answers. They sit in silence for a long moment, but Felicity knows Lyla has something else to say. “I am in no way advocating for you to decide one thing or another, but Felicity?”

Felicity tilts her head. “Yeah?”

“I would give almost anything to have Johnny back,” she says solemnly. “I love him. I’ll always love him, no matter how angry I still am with him for the decisions he made.”

The words resonate.

Beside her, Lyla shifts, leaning her head on Felicity’s shoulder. They sit in companionable silence, as Felicity ruminates. 

She’s no closer to a decision, not really, but she feels less... _scattered_. Less adrift.

By the time John Junior knocks on the partially open door and pokes his head in, pillowmarks on his face, Felicity is okay enough to invite him to join them.

“You sure this isn’t some ladies’ only thing?” John Junior asks skeptically. But he’s drifting toward the foot of the bed. 

“Sit with us,” Felicity insists, and her smile for her nephew is genuine. “Tell me about defeating Wilson.”

“C’mon, Aunt Felicity,” John Junior scoffs, sprawling that big body of his along the entire bottom half of the bed. Felicity smiles at the sight, remembering a much smaller and impossibly younger John Junior doing the same thing almost every time she and Oliver babysat. John Junior fixes his gaze on Felicity. “You _really_ just want to know about the guys Sara Lance brought with her from the future.” 

Joy bubbles up, and Felicity leans forward, intent. “You saw _Sara_? She’s-- Sara’s okay?” It’s almost too much, this unexpected gift in the midst of so much pain. _Sara_ , beautiful, brave Sara.

John Junior nods emphatically. “Yeah, she’s great. Well, I mean, she seemed a little, uh...”

“A little what?” Felicity holds her breath.

“A little shocked to see Oliver,” John Junior answers, shifting a little uncomfortably. “You know, like that.”

Felicity’s happiness at news of Sara is only very slightly dimmed. “Because he’s living in a basement like a hermit?” she asks, and it’s almost a joke. Not quite, but she feels she should get points for trying.

“Well, _yeah_.” John Junior chews his lip, thinking. “I don’t think she was from the future, actually.” He frowns, pondering. “I think she’s from the past? I’m not quite sure, because she doesn’t _look_ old like--” John Junior’s eyes widen, and he hastily adds, “I mean, old _er_ ”

Felicity huffs a laugh while Lyla nudges her son in the chest with her foot. “Did you just call your mother _old_?”

“Old _er_ ,” John Junior repeats, one hand up in supplication. “Just -- older than me. Sara looked Sara’s age!” He pauses. “That’s a really confusing sentence.”

Felicity laughs outright this time, relieved and so, so happy to know Sara’s still out there kicking ass and taking names. “Time travel is really confusing,” she agrees. She wants to ask John Junior a hundred questions about Oliver, but this is actually better. This is a break, a breather, a moment of respite. So she readjusts the pillow behind her back and settles in. “Tell me everything Sara said. Did you meet Ray? Is he okay? What about Kendra?”

“Okay, okay,” John Junior answers with a wry grin. “If you stop asking, I’ll tell you.”

Felicity nods and stays quiet, listening intently as John Junior tells his story.

END CHAPTER FOUR


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final note of thanks to Sus, without whose incisive advice I would've stumbled blindly through this. <3

It’s well past noon when Felicity gathers the courage to suggest they head back to the lair; to Oliver. John Junior and Lyla agree quickly, offering to drop her off without them. She doesn’t want them to feel unwelcome, though, and protests. “It’s your home, too, John Junior.”

Her nephew’s expression shutters a little, and he corrects her gently. “It’s just John, now,” he says, and Felicity can hear the weight of his grief for his father. “Or Connor.”

“John, then,” Felicity answers, moving closer even if she has to tip her head back to hold eye contact. “But my point stands -- this is your home; I’m the visitor.”

“I don’t--” John Junior glances at his mother, then takes a breath. “I mostly stay at Raquel’s,” he says, words jumbled together. It takes Felicity a moment to process, to get past the pang of nostalgia she feels for this glimpse of the kind, bashful adolescent John Junior had been once. He’s got that same moderately panicked look on his face, the same tension along his shoulders as when he’d missed curfew -- like he’s just waiting for judgement from his mother.

Instead, Lyla’s face lights up. “Oh, really,” she drawls, and Felicity has heard this teasing tone from her friend so infrequently the last dozen years. “And when were you planning to introduce me to your girlfriend?”

John Junior shifts awkwardly, and Felicity can’t help but throw an arm around his waist. His much larger arm circles her shoulder and squeezes her to his side. “Uh, today?” he asks. “Maybe we could--”

“While Felicity and Oliver talk,” Lyla interrupts with a grin. “Yes. That works out nicely for everyone.”

Felicity can’t quite contain her chuckle when John Junior makes a strangled kind of noise and nods reluctantly. She pats his back and steps away. “Tell Raquel I can’t wait to meet her, too.”

“Great,” John Junior mutters. 

Felicity’s amusement at her nephew is quickly replaced by nerves when they head out of the safehouse. She’s impatient, eager to see Oliver again, to touch him again and reassure herself that this is really happening. But she also doesn’t know what to say to him now that her first wave of anger and relief has passed.

Her conversation with Lyla helped, but everything still boils down to the fact that she loves him beyond reason, but he hurt her beyond measure. 

She honestly doesn’t know what happens next.

The drive passes entirely too quickly, and the Michaels-Diggles drop her there with encouraging (if slightly worried) smiles. Lyla taps her device and reassures Felicity, “We’ll come right back whenever you need us.” 

Felicity nods and suddenly, far before she’s emotionally ready, she’s standing inside the garage of their old lair again, peering into the large, seemingly empty space. “Oliver?” 

He appears out of the darkness much as he did yesterday, and there is clear relief on his face. “I’m here.” He scans her form eagerly, and she flushes, just a little. She’s entirely too practical to have brought skirts with her to Star City, but she definitely picked the most flattering jeans for today, along with a fitted blouse in a deep, rich maroon. 

Oliver looks a little more presentable than yesterday -- he’s wearing jeans, too, and she wonders momentarily how difficult things like buttons and zippers are for him with only one arm. Her gaze shifts to the empty sleeve of his navy blue henley; he’s cut it short and tied the end, so that the small knot dangles by his rib cage.

They stand in an awkward silence for a moment, until Felicity indicates the closed garage door behind her. “John Junior took Lyla to meet his girlfriend.”

There’s a hint of smile on Oliver’s face. “She’s nice. Lyla will like her.”

“You’ve met her?” Felicity asks, surprised. She didn’t expect something so... _normal_ from the man effectively living isolated in a high-tech cave.

Oliver shrugs. “He’s my nephew. Since he--” He stops, ducks his chin. “Things have been better lately.” And there it is. The perfect entrance into this conversation that they need to have. Felicity opens her mouth to jump in, but Oliver steps closer and holds out his hand. “Can we... I’d like to show you this place.” He makes a face at himself, then corrects with, “I mean, _remind_ you of it. Show you what it’s like now.”

Wordlessly, Felicity takes his hand and follows him into the heart of what had been their lair. They walk slowly in a circle, Felicity taking in the changes, the _aging_ of their space with a fond, sad kind of nostalgia. It’s clear that Oliver had mostly left the lair to age and molder on its own, and has only recently worked to restore it to some modicum of its former glory. But beneath the scraped metal and the cracks in the wood and the fresh paint, she can see remnants of what the space used to be. She remembers installing that first PA system way back in ‘15, she remembers when they got the newer, larger conference table sometime in the early 20s. 

God, she remembers Oliver bringing her Big Belly in the middle of one long night in ‘33, leading her over to the mats for an impromptu celebration of the 20th anniversary of her initiation onto Team Arrow. (“I still don’t call it that,” he’d grouched, but she’d just grinned at him and pulled him down onto the mats, and later they’d shared cold fries and warm milkshakes; it’d been perfect.)

Now, Oliver holds tightly to her hand as they move through the lair, commenting occasionally on what has changed; on what he kept the same. When they make their way up onto the raised platform -- what Oliver used to sappily call the heart of the team -- she recognizes her old computers. The ‘35s, for God’s sake. Somehow, they’re still limping along despite their desperate need of an upgrade. 

Oliver chuckles at the distressed sound she makes when she pats the monitor in apology. 

She gives him a look. “I can’t believe they still even turn _on_ considering how badly you’ve neglected them.”

He leans closer, bumping his arm against hers. “They’ve always only needed your touch, Felicity.”

She can’t answer that, can’t even look at him. Swallowing hard around the tightness in her throat, she nods once. 

Beside her, Oliver sighs. But he doesn’t comment, just tugs gently on her hand to get her moving again, down the stairs and away from the computers. She casts a fond look back at her old station as Oliver pulls her towards what used to be the medical bay and the locker rooms. Her heart clenches at the sight of his familiar suit -- it’s the one she had custom made for him in ‘34, not long before everything went to hell. It’s worn and patched now, hanging on a mannequin in a broken-down display case. There’s a smaller, newer suit in the next case, one with gold embellishments that concern her from a strictly camouflage-related perspective. “Doesn’t the gold catch the light?” she wonders.

“I’ve talked to him about that,” Oliver answers, disapproval ringing clear in his voice. “He doesn’t pay that much attention to my opinion on the suit.”

Felicity considers this; John Junior is smart and kind, but he’s still so very young. “How long was he out there by himself?” she asks quietly.

Oliver stiffens, but answers her anyway. “He was never out there by himself.” Felicity stumbles to a stop, staring up at him with wide eyes. He shifts his weight, and she can tell what it costs him to hold her gaze. “I couldn’t wear the suit anymore, not after--” He stops, shakes his head. “But as soon as I figured out it was him, I kept an eye on him. Stayed hidden, but I-- I backed him up, long before he realized it.”

Is she _ever_ going to stop crying? She ignores the tears on her cheeks and squeezes his hand. In thanks, in comfort -- she’s not really sure why, only that she needs him to understand how relieved she is to hear he’d protected John Junior as best he could, even when he was at his lowest. This man and his selfless, protective heart -- he may have cut her deeply, but she knows he would have never, ever done that maliciously. Not even intentionally -- only an Oliver consumed by his demons would have left her to mourn him.

He’s watching her curiously, but she can’t verbalize any of this, so she just presses an affectionate kiss to his shoulder, the way she has a million times before. He sucks in an unsteady breath, his eyes dropping shut for a long moment.

“You’re a good uncle,” she tells him, an echo of how they’d comforted each other long ago, in the absence of their own children. 

When he looks down at her, his eyes are wet. “You’re the _best_ aunt.” His gaze lingers on her for a long moment, until she manages the barest of nods. 

Oliver pulls her away from the Green Arrow suits, and towards the old locker room. Instead of small benches and a changing areas, he’s made the space into a living area; into his _home_. His home without her.

Felicity stops in the entryway, heart aching as her eyes scan the space, looking for traces of the man she loves. Looking for answers. 

The room is neat, and somewhat impersonal in a way that makes her so very sad for him. She’d mourned him deeply, and she’d fled Star City with very little of their shared _things_ ; still,in the years since, she’s built a new home. And, yes, it’s one without his physical presence, and without any of the furniture and decorations and memory-infused belongings they’d bought together over the years, but Oliver has remained a part of her life. His picture is in frames in every room, his influence shows in the decor she chooses, and his memory in her heart has never faded. Her home is warm and comforting to her, filled with things that connect her with the life she had before, the person she is now, and all of the people she loves.

But here, in Oliver’s longtime home, there’s little trace of him -- there are small table lamps, one on a table against the wall, the other on the nightstand. Oliver’s double bed is perfectly made up with a slate grey coverlet, there’s an armchair that she recognizes from her old Smoak Technologies startup office, and a bookcase full of well-worn books. 

On top of the bookcase rests one picture in a simple frame -- the only sign that a man with a past and a family lives here. The picture is from their 10th anniversary trip to Bali. She’s wearing a bright purple dress, loose and lightweight in deference to the climate, and Oliver’s in tan slacks and a crisp white dress shirt. They’re hand in hand, standing on the beach, and moments before this picture, they’d taken a posed one, only the wind had flung her hair directly in Oliver’s face. In this picture, they’re both grinning, staring at each other with such happiness on their faces. It’s one of her favorite pictures; she has the exact same picture framed in her bedroom in Coast City. 

She drifts closer, dropping his hand. Behind her, she hears Oliver clear his throat, and then he says, “I only have a few other pictures. Of us, I mean. The others I keep with me.”

Felicity nods, thinking of the family pictures she carries with her. “This one’s my favorite,” she murmurs, lifting the frame so she can trace the line of his face. He’d been going grey even then, particularly in his scruff, and she’d teased him mercilessly. But he’s so genetically gifted that the glint of silver in his hair, the laugh lines on his face -- all of it only ever made him _more_ handsome.

“You’re beautiful,” Oliver says, as if he’s reading her mind. “You have always been gorgeous,” he continues, and suddenly he’s so close behind her that she can feel his body heat. “But now, you’re-- Felicity, you’re radiant.”

She knows he’s wrong -- she’s carrying a little more weight than she used to, her laugh lines aren’t quite as flattering to her as his are to him, and her hair is nearly all white these days. But she _also_ knows he’s speaking as a man in love, and so she allows herself to glance at him. “Thank you.”

He’s watching her with soft, yearning eyes. “Can we sit? Talk about--”

“So many things,” she interrupts, and she’s almost able to smile. “Yes.” She sets the picture down and turns, only to find Oliver glancing between her and the bed with a strange look on his face.

“I didn’t think about--” He shakes his head. “We can go back out there.”

“No, no,” Felicity walks past him and moves to the edge of the bed. She kicks her shoes off and then reaches for the bedcovers, pulling them back to expose the pillows. She pulls one up and climbs into his bed, sitting upright against the wall with his pillow behind her back. When she looks up at Oliver, he’s watching her with tears in her eyes. She smiles softly. “Come on.”

He moves with that same familiar grace, his motions smooth and sure, even as he handles tasks with only one arm. He follows her lead, settling beside her, then half-turning toward her, leaning his shoulder into the wall. “It’s a little overwhelming, you being here.”

She nods. “For me, too.”

“I--” He stops and makes a frustrated noise, shifting again to face her a bit more fully. “I love you and I miss you and I’m so, so sorry.”

It’s a little easier to hear the words today, and to hear the emotion, the _honesty_ behind them. 

He takes a deep breath. “There’s more. I can -- I could talk for hours about how it’s been here, how dark my world is without you. I can try to explain, but that’s the long and short of it. I love you, and I’m sorry.”

Felicity nods slowly. “I... I know,” she says. “Oliver, I have missed you every single day, and I love you, too. I will _always_ love you.”

The apprehensive expression on his face cracks, and she can see hope take hold within him. She _remembers_ this look -- she’d first seen it across the table in a fancy Italian restaurant, when he’d admitted that maybe he was wrong to keep himself apart, _separate_. And here they are, more than thirty years later, right back in the same place, arguing about the same things.

And Felicity is so, so tired. “And I know that you’re sorry, Oliver. I believe you. But I’m not sure how to forgive this,” she confesses softly, trying to dampen the blow.

It doesn’t work. All of the visible hope drains away, leaving Oliver with watery eyes. He presses his lips together for a long moment, then nods, resolute. “How to forgive _me_ , you mean.” 

Their gaze holds for a long moment, until Felicity says, “Yes.”

He shifts, then, shrinking away from her, somehow, and Felicity can see, suddenly, what the _next_ dozen years will look like without him. She hadn’t been able to get over this man when she’d been sure he was dead; there’s no way she’ll be able to get over him knowing he’s alive and loving her from afar. She can see a future of chosen loneliness, of living off of hearsay out of the ruins of Star City, of monitoring whatever security cameras she can find that are still working just for a glimpse of this man she loves. She can imagine watching him die _again_ , only this time knowing for sure she’d thrown away whatever time she may have left with him, knowing for _sure_ that she’d chosen to walk away from him.

Felicity is a strong woman, but she’s pretty sure leaving Oliver alone to his fate would break her.

And she realizes her decision is already made.

“I’m not leaving,” she tells him, her voice strong and sure.

Oliver’s head snaps up, and he stares at her in confusion. “Felicity, what--?”

“This is the worst,” she interrupts, the words tumbling out now. “The last twelve years? That’s the _worst_ thing I could ever imagine. I lost you, and I mourned you, and now you’re alive and in front of me, and no matter how angry I am at you, no matter how much I cannot understand why you made the decisions you made -- you’re _alive_. My _husband_ is alive, the man I promised _for better or worse_. The man I promised _always_ , and I won’t go back on that. I can’t. I don’t know how you were able to do it, but I can’t leave you by choice.”

Oliver flinches at her words, but he’s still watching her with that worshipful gaze that her memory has never quite been able to recreate. “Felicity...”

When he doesn’t continue, she frowns. “Wait. I mean -- I assumed that you _wanted_ me to stay, but you never actually said that, so maybe you just want me to forgive you and leave? In which case, I’m sorry, but no. I might be willing to stay and try to forgive you, but I’m definitely not there yet. So if you want me to leave, I’ll leave,” she frowns, “I guess. And when I say _stay_ , I don’t necessarily mean _here_ , as in--”

“ _No_ ,” he interrupts, snapping out of his seeming paralysis. “Felicity, _no_ , I don’t want you to-- _Stay_ ,” he says, those blue eyes laser focused on her. “If you’re willing to, please, _please_ stay with me.” He reaches for her but stops himself, his hand hovering over hers where they are clenched together in her lap. 

“Okay,” Felicity answers, and a good portion of the swirling chaos she’s been feeling the past few days... _settles_. She reaches for him -- taking his hand with one of hers, and shifting towards him, lifting her other arm up and around his neck to pull him to her.

It’s awkward -- they’re not quite aligned properly for a hug, and she’s not yet used to him only have one big arm to wrap around her. But, oh, is it heartfelt. It feels like some of her broken pieces shifting back into place. 

Oliver murmurs her name and presses his face into her neck. When his shoulders start to shake, she shifts against him, urging him in soft whispers to move. They slide down, settling onto the mattress together, and Oliver wraps himself around her, lying half on her chest, pressing kisses against her shoulder, tucking his arm beneath her. 

Felicity loops her leg over his and rubs his back, smooths his hair, and just lets him cry. She closes her eyes, savoring the feel of him here with her. Regretful and a little more broken than he used to be, but alive and _here_. Feeling the firm weight of his body on hers -- it brings back a million nights, a thousand naps in the warm sunlight, and she’s overwhelmed with gratitude that he’s in her arms again. Tears slide from her eyes and down the sides of her face, but she just dips her chin to press a kiss to the top of his head, inhaling his familiar scent. 

Oliver cries for a long time, and Felicity can’t help but wonder how much of this is his grief for Thea and for John; how much is all the guilt and self-doubt and rage that he tried to bottle up; how much is him finally releasing the demons that have been controlling him these long years?

She can still feel her anger that he prevented her from being his comfort for so long; prevented her from being his _wife_. But it’s at least balanced by her relief that he’s letting her hold him now.

When he starts to calm, she lifts a hand from his neck, swiping at the wetness on her own cheeks, sniffling. 

He lifts himself up onto his elbow, looking down at her with red eyes. “Felicity?”

“I’m okay,” she reassures him with a smile. She must look a fright, but he is watching her with the same open appreciation he always has. “Emotional couple of days.”

He nods, those warm, bright blue eyes focused on her. “I need you to know something,” he says, his voice rough. “I’ve been… in a bad place for a really long time. But I’ve been getting better. I’ve been... _trying_. Since John Junior and Sara found me, since I-- I just need you to know if you hadn’t come here, I would’ve come for you.” He leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek; his beard scratches. “I didn’t think I was brave enough yet,” he confesses, and he looks ashamed of himself, but presses on anyway, “but I would’ve come for you. Soon.”

It’s the truth -- she can see it in his face. She knows this means he’s been brooding over it, weighing his options, planning it like some kind of mission. She knows he’s been longing for her, and trying to forgive himself so that he could feel worthy of approaching her again. She _knows_ he’s wanted to fix his mistakes. And this knowledge eases another little bit of her hurt. 

She’s not there yet -- she meant it when she said she doesn’t know how to forgive him for this yet. But she is starting to believe that she will get there. She’s starting to believe that her love for him is more powerful than all of the broken places his choices left inside of her. 

And, God, has she missed this -- the heavy press of his body against hers, his warm breath on her face as he looms over her. She scratches her fingertips through his beard until he purrs like a cat. Then she urges him closer.

Oliver’s eyes are wide with surprise, and then he leans in, and then -- she’s kissing her husband for the first time in years. His lips are so familiar as they move against hers, all soft, firm, sweet pressure. The beard is more insistent, rougher against her skin than his stubble used to be, and she ends up laughing into the kiss until he pulls back with a puzzled look and half of a smile. “What?”

She grins up at him and pats the beard. “We’re going to have to talk about _this_ ,” she tells him.

He huffs a laugh, and it is the first _easy_ moment between them, the first moment that makes her believe that maybe she’s not crazy to stay. Maybe she can find a way to truly forgive him; maybe they can find their way back to each other.

Oliver hovers closer now, more comfortable with her choices, more confident about her decision to stay. He rubs his cheek against hers until she laughs and tilts her head away. Then he says, “I’ll shave it off if you want me to, Felicity.”

She tightens her arms around his torso, hugging him tight. “I miss the scruff,” she whispers. “Also,” she adds, wriggling a little to get more comfortable, “when I said I wanted to _stay_ , I didn’t necessarily mean here.”

Oliver freezes, staring down at her with mild panic on his face. “Here?” he asks, barely breathing as he awaits her answer.

She smooths a hand down his spine, urging him to relax. “I’m not leaving _you_ , Oliver, but I think we should probably leave this place.” She means the lair, primarily, because living underground is just... really not a thing she wants to do. But she also can’t see herself moving back to the ruins of Star City permanently. There’s so much good here, but most of it is relegated to her memories; the city is a burnt out husk of what it once was, and she’s not sure she has it in her to commit to rebuilding it.

He lets out a heavy breath, then nods. “Okay. I-- That’s okay.”

Felicity brings a hand around, cupping his face, making sure she has his full attention. “I don’t want to leave John Junior alone, Oliver. I’m not saying we leave tomorrow -- I know there’s finally a chance to make real progress here in Star City. I’m willing to stay for a while, but I don’t think that I can move here forever.” It’s a compromise of sorts -- she wants him to choose the light, to choose a _life_ with her, but she knows he still feels responsible for Star City, for the destruction wrought by the son of a man Oliver once considered a friend.

She can see the indecision in his body. She _knows_ he wants to agree to whatever she wants, even though he’ll never be comfortable leaving Star City to fall. 

And then his arm tightens around her, and he nods. “I want-- I want the rest of my life to be _with you_ , Felicity. The rest--” He stops, lips curving slightly. “We can move to Bali.”

Surprised, Felicity laughs, because she remembers a couple dozen arguments that ended with one or the other of them threatening to move to Bali, and at least a few conversations about the possibility of buying a place there to spend a lot more time once they retired. She can’t quite wipe the smile off of her face at the very idea that their fantasy retirement is an actual possibility again. “We don’t need to figure everything out right now, Oliver, I just-- I’m still...” She trails off, not wanting to ruin this warm, fragile peace.

But Oliver can still read her as well as she can read him, apparently, because he says, “You’re still angry.” There’s no hint of censure in his voice; he’s just stating the facts as he understands them. “It’s okay, Felicity. I don’t expect you to forgive me right now. I just-- I want the chance to earn your trust back.”

“That’s why I’m staying, Oliver. I want that, too.” They smile at each other. “We can figure the rest out later, okay?”

“Okay,” he agrees easily, and there’s such wonder in his eyes as he watches her that she has to blink back tears.

She leans up, stealing another lingering kiss from him. “But retiring to Bali is _definitely_ on the table.”

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, dear readers, for making it this far into such an angsty world. ;) I sincerely appreciate it.


End file.
